115707-casual-feedback
Content ---- ---- Hello Filthy Casual, I'm right with you on the positive notes. However, I disagree with a couple of the negatives. This game was billed as a theme park, not sandbox. That being said, the only time you HAVE to teleport to get somewhere is when changing continents. I can run from Algoroc to Whitevale without ever hitting a loading screen... or even Blighthaven to Malgrave... so I'd have to say you are just plain wrong here. The only other things I disagree with here are your desire for easier Adventure/Dungeon/Raid difficulties. No thanks. | |} ---- Each continent has to be traveled to, just like in WoW. Because all the zones in each continent haven't been added yet, yes it can seem less open world than it is, but the 3 contiguous areas are each quite large. I'll ask in all honesty, what games release with multiple leveling paths? Most of the recent MMOs worth a damn I can think of didn't have them at launch. | |} ---- ---- Yes while it is true that most games do not launch with multiple leveling paths they at least try to change up the quests, all the quests in the starting zones are the same except for faction. | |} ---- Just a couple quick notes: -I'm not for scalable raids, but I am for 20/40 man versions of all raids -I think a better idea for medalling is to work it into something more organic, like the damage taken by all 4 non-tank players compared to a benchmark, or a rating system tied solely to deaths, or even a medaling system based on the DPS of DPS, healing of healers, and damage taken compared to everyone else's damage by tanks. I do agree timers aren't a good way to go about it. It would be better if the medaling system had a bit more relevance to what it's trying to measure. I know that will take time, though. -I don't really think we need difficulty settings. I walked in as a fresh tank into Stonetalon's Lair and we got silver, and I wouldn't consider myself especially godly at the game. We already have normal and veteran, and I think those are just fine for now. Otherwise, all of these are good ideas. Most aren't new and Carbine has already stated they're working on a lot of them. If you're in Evindra, I know my guild is recruiting casual players and hoping to run more content. With me tanking :P so take that for what it's worth. I do think.most of these are issues, though, ones I've brought up my own solutions to, even if I don't necessarily think these are all the best way forward. | |} ---- ---- ---- or shiphands | |} ---- ---- As others have mentioned it's an "open" world, it just doesn't feel like it, atleast for me either. I loved the world of AA (too bad the game is a turd followed up by xl) & WoW, gives that open free feeling, plus the advantage of flying/gliding tops it off very well. Where W* has no fly/glider, walls of all kinds that narrow an area you're in, click this every two steps, mobs everywhere, and a claustrophobic topography leads new/old players to a swtor esque feeling of a box within a box. With the way housing setup (instanced), taxis, zone portals, and ground mounts I can see why people just minimize by using teleports, I did. I definitely agree with your positive list besides the story. | |} ---- Not at all true. Yes, the first two starting zones they made (Crimson Isle and Northern Wilds) are very similar. However Everstar Grove and Levian Bay are both different from those two, and different from each other. You can't look at zones in a vacuum, there's a very definite difference based on when they were made and how familiar the content teams were with their tools and what they had available. In any case, I'm not sure how insisting that zones players are in for less than an hour should be different and interesting helps the game. A far better use of their time would be creating better flow and cohesion in places like Galeras and Auroria. | |} ---- the quest and challenges are exactly the same, with different skins | |} ---- lol by that logic, the entire game is the same (and all games with quests and monsters and weapons and characters). Try again. | |} ---- thayd has teleporters for whitevale, farside, wilderrun, malgrave, grimvault, crimson badlands, and northern wastes most of them are required to use to get there and the ones that are not required the breadcrumb quests have you use them anyways. Even whitevale which is literally connected to thayd Basically everything 30+ is teleporter to go there, surprised you didn't pick up on that | |} ---- First off if you are filthy you should have a bath. To be honest the one thing that I think would have been cool for the open world... would have been for housing to have been an instance with streets and what not... what's that your friend the Gingerbread Man who lives on 4 Drury Lane... well I got to go down to see him and ride down there on your hoverboard. Also would encourage some other good stuff because unless you planned ahead you would have had at least two random neighbours... damn those kids and their loud music... or those kids and their jumping puzzles with cubigs. To be honest I think requesting 3 leveling paths is something I dont know of any game that has been released recently offering. My biggest problem with leveling alts was until I hit 6 I would PVP until 14 because I couldn't stand those lowbie zones on dominion side and then PVP and quest to get to whitevale. I think I was the only one who liked whitevale because Lopp are the master race of Nexus. | |} ---- Hey, I don't know your faction or region, but if you happen to be dominion on the NA servers, and you'd like to try dungeons again at some point add Alynia@Stormtalon. I'm currently working on making a circle to get newer players and players who are inexperienced in group content together to create an environment that is better than lfg. Most of the dungeons take coordination and practice, and this is far better with an understanding group. As far as time concerns, if you get the right people together, you can work on each boss at a time if you want to. You go in, learn the first boss and then the next time you go in, you make it to the second boss. Eventually you are doing full runs in a reasonable amount of time. :) | |} ---- This makes a good point. Though medals are supposed to judge performance and I think they need to continue serving that purpose (certainly not using their current metrics), a major issue in this game has been that people get into PUGs to go for gold, but that's not the case for all players. The dissonance is half of what caused the dissolution of PUGs for dungeons. They caused a reputation in PUGs for people ragequitting over a death. Unlike in a game like WoW, where that's seen as just general douchebaggery, in WS queues, there's an actual game reason to do that (you get a lot more gear for getting gold). A good way, I think, to not have this issue with pugs (without just telling people to pick-up and only pick-up) would be first to divorce the gear rewards from the medal. There should be medal rewards, monetary and currency, but it would be better if it wasn't tied to the gearing. They should also probably be able to indicate whether they're trying to medal or complete in the queue process, so people know what they're joining a gold medal run. I also think that personal initiative should be rewarded. It would be good if the players who contribute most positively to medaling should get bonuses, therefore giving people who are exceptionally good to join a random PUG and stick with it even when it drops to bronze. That way, the effective players are still rewarded for being teachers. Just a couple spitballed ideas. | |} ---- I got to thinking, and I think there's an even better route than what I was thinking earlier. Taking what you said earlier about re-working how the performance medals are calculated. So let's say they keep the Medal system, what they could do to marry it to the Difficulty selection system: -Easy Difficulty- This would be the bare bones experience, no timer, no medals, low level rewards (some gear, some decor, some other cosmetic stuff, random other things similar to what you have a chance to receive from completing a Challenge while soloing). This would be the perfect place for players who are new to the game can come in, work on their technique, experiment with different skill sets, practice group coordination techniques, and Mentor each other (like a training plan for guilds/friends) and they can do it in a relatively stress-free and relaxed environment. This would be a great way for people to enhance their skills in a "work at your own pace" step-up system. -Normal Difficulty- Introduce the Performance Medal system, albeit in a slightly watered down fashion. Gold, Silver, and Bronze would be calculated based on performance, but not speed. In this system, a Tank's ability to hold Aggro, a Healer's ability to keep the team alive, and the Dps ability to wear down opponents would all be taken into account along with the total group functionality (how many times did the group successfully break through the interrupt armor to interrupt a major damage attack from mobs, and similar other performance objectives). This would be a great way to introduce the more advanced concepts and have them actually mean something in the process. The rewards could be more gear and progression based with some basic scaling based on the medal earned during the run (but mostly it's for providing feedback to the player on their performance). -Hard Difficulty- Now we get into the "no shit, real-deal, Wildstar is going to rip your face off and wear it like a mask as it does it's 'kooky-dance'". This would be difficulty setting where the medal system not only takes into account a groups ability to work together and communicate, but also how quickly the group can complete the dungeon. This is the difficulty setting where if you manage to pull a Gold out of the run, you get the best possible gear for the level of the dungeon and your name gets ranked on the Leaderboards for everyone else to gawk at ("damn, he did that fast!" and "those guys are badass!"). So, not only did you kick the ass of the hardest available content, but now you've got the pretty new gear and the bragging rights are on the board for everyone else to see - "You want this? You like this? Do what I did, and you can have it. Until then, nut up, or shut up!". | |} ---- ---- That's only a part of the issue. Most people will get better after practice, but unfortunately, with the way the current system (the medal system) is you tend to see a lot of /RAGEQUIT when people don't get their Gold. What has personally left a bad taste in my mouth is we will miss the Gold...and the Silver... and then someone starts cussing us all out and starts acting like a real A-hole about things. Then they usually /NERD-RAGE-OMG-WTF-NOOB-L2P-I-QUIT!, and then the "Vote Disband" window promptly pops up. While the whole "trial by fire" method of learning may seem good on paper, it unfortunately doesn't work in practice because actual human beings are involved. That kind of toxic behavior that I just described not only does a fantastic job of completely discouraging new players from trying again, but in some cases people will actually cancel a sub because of it and go back to a game that they are familiar with. There really needs to be some way to declare from the get-go what our intentions are when we hop into a dungeon, whether we are running it for the first time and want to learn, or are have every intention of walking out with that Gold medal. Without having easier versions of dungeons to run, it becomes exceedingly difficult for new players to learn the mechanics because as the dungeons are now there is little to no margin for error else you run the risk of someone going Chernobyl on you and then rage-quitting. | |} ---- That sounds great, actually. Complex, and it may end up fragmenting the player base, but if there's a way to keep from doing that, I'd totally back this idea. One thing though; I think a good way to judge medal completion would rely on the full-clear. The thing stumping me, if you can help, is trying to figure out a system that takes that into account. I'd say to just take performance, enemies remaining, and time taken into account to pull the medal number, but that's very vague feedback, and I'm trying to think of a more comprehensive metric. I think those are the basics, tanks should be judged on tanking, DPS on DPS, and healers on healing, all enemies and content (along with optional objectives) should be cleared, and maybe at the end take time into account. I'll also take a page from my old treatise post I brought up and re-suggest pulling timers altogether. Base medals on performance and content remaining. Then, take things like timers and turn them into a sort of "challenge mode" where certain new changes are in play. A few examples I brought up were modes where overall timers were in effect, any mob killed in combat buffs any other mobs in combat significantly which forces everyone to kill mobs as close to each other as possible, modes with the friction switched off, forcing characters to kind of fight while essentially ice skating, things like that. It'd sure make the dungeons a LOT harder by implementing them, and then you'd have challenge content that should only ever be attempted by a skilled and coordinated premade who know exactly what they're getting into. That sounds like it would be fun. | |} ---- I wouldn't worry too much about the player base fragmenting. Fragmenting is a pretty natural occurrence for any large scale social activity, like an MMO. Whether people like to RP, PVP, Raid, or just casually run Dungeons/Adventures, they will find some social group within the game that is populated with like-minded individuals (guilds or just people they meet while doing those activities). I think the best way to accommodate that phenomenon is by having activities that will cater to individual desires and let the social groups form around said activities. I wouldn't imagine it would be too difficult to have a metric that measures % completion of a dungeon. The developers most likely know how many mobs are in a particular instance and I wouldn't imagine it would be too difficult to track how many of them were killed by the group during the run and then expressing that as a percentage at the end of the run. As far as what % correlates to which Medal, well that's for someone more savvy than myself to decide :) I like the idea of the challenge mode too. It sounds like what your suggesting is, instead of timing how fast the group can get to and down the final boss, they would be instead timed on how quickly they move from fight to fight, which would be a good way to gauge how efficient the group was in the previous fight (better performances lead to less downtime/recovery time between fights). It definitely sounds like a great way to appeal to people who like to form teams and coordinate strategies with a group of friends. I think, what would be really cool with a system like that, would also to have a system in place where people could actually form a "formal" team, complete with a Team Name and an associated Title (kind of like the current Guild representation on the name plate) and even have ratings and gear for those teams (like the PVP rating system, but for PVE content). | |} ---- Well, that wasn't the original idea. The original post is here, and here's the excerpt where I talked about it.... I think the problem is that, especially right now, fragmenting the playerbase might be a big issue. As a specific example, what happens when everyone is trying for medals, and someone new comes along. The queues for the non-medaling dungeon runs might be quite a bit longer, leading to the situation we have now in a lot of instances where people simply don't queue into Malgrave Trail or anything but Walatiki Temple. It just takes too long for the queue to run. Also, the metric for judging % completed in a dungeon might not be that hard, but what would be hard is judging the "quality" of the team. For example, in my quoted example, I thought it might be good to judge by damage taken. However, it was brought up that this might unfairly judge absorbtion tanks who take more damage than their avoidance counterparts. DPS being judged on their DPS, that's not hard to do, I don't think. Healers might be a little more complicated (healing done vs overhealing? overall HP uptime?), but I have trouble still figuring out how to judge the tanks on quality considering there are so many ways to tank. The idea of having a PVE challenge team, a bit like an arena team from how I interpret this, sounds like an amazing idea, though! In fact, when someone is talking about scalable dungeons and raids, suddenly, this was a puzzle piece that slid into place. What if all instances scaled to teams of 3 and 5 people (since everyone needs a tank, healer, and at least one DPS), and you could build a 5 man team for challenge content like an arena team. Maybe you give all the raids 10, 20, and 40 man counterparts. Then it's just a matter of scaling mechanics so they always need the correct amount of tanks. A boss has no adds in 10 man mode, requires a tank swapping mechanic in 20 man mode, and has a pair of adds that have to be tanked in a death spiral at 40 (we are, of course, under no compunction to be reasonable in 40 man mode since we're talking about scaling content. Or we could simply have people scaling back tanks and have people queueing for both tank and DPS, that way, 5 man teams sort of blend in, converting tanks to DPS as they go. In fact, I'm sort of formulating an idea in crafting for "dual" stats, essentially paying extra mats or EG-bought items in to switch stats when you switch roles. So you can build heavy armor that is built for Brutality, Finesse, and Crit Hit, and after some investment, you essentially build the piece so that when you switch to tank, Brutality swaps for Tech, Finesse swaps for Insight, and Crit Hit swaps for Grit. That way, you don't need to have two different sets. The only issue offhand I can see is that replacing a piece would require a lot more extra expense, so it should be taken into account with EG gains or what materials a crafter would need to build it. That's a very loose idea, but at least then we'd have less problems with people needing to actually switch from DPS to tank as the group size rises without altering mechanics. | |} ---- Ooh, yeah, I see what you're saying with the tank ratings. That would be tough to implement without stepping on peoples toes because of the different ways to tank in this game. Maybe the solution is actually a combination of solutions all rolled into one, I'm not sure what the specifics would be though. The only thing that I can really think of would be to have the system focus mostly on what a tanks purpose would be, to hold aggro/threat. From what I gather about the system (not that I know what's under the hood, specifically), the aggro that a tank generates is based on an unseen numerical value, and perhaps rating their ability to generate and maintain that aggro can be used to rate their effectiveness. I also think I have a better idea of what you mean by the different challenge modes. Kind of like the old Halo games, where you could elect to turn off certain parts of the HUD like the radar, or make it so enemies would do double the damage or whatever. I just got this mental picture of a "frictionless" mode, and damn, that would be brutal, lol. I think it would be a blast to see in action. The reason why I'm not overly concerned with the fragmentation of the player-base is because, well, it's normal. "Different strokes for different folks" and all that. If Carbine can manage to squeeze these different modes/difficulty levels into the game, I think that while it would fragment the player-base, it wouldn't be in any way that would be unnatural, in fact, the player-base already fragments pretty regularly except they tend to fragment into either "still playing Wildstar" or "not playing Wildstar because they ran out of things that appeal to them". If we could convince them to implement more modes for the dungeons, in particular, and make a few other adjustments (still a proponent of adding Shiphands to the LFG que with 1-3 player modes) then I think after some judicious advertising people would start to come back in greater numbers and the aforementioned fragmentation would still allow for healthy population levels for the various activities in the game. Just need to make the changes and get the word out there, the combat itself is appealing enough, that I think with some increased accessibility for the various activities in the game we could see a population bloom over the course of a few months. | |} ---- ----